Jocko Willink, Former Navy Seal - How To Overcome Stress

Is there anything likely to be more stressful in life than having people shoot at you? Probably not. Though most of us won't face that level of stress in our 9-5 lives, stress is certainly something that's negatively affecting more and more people today. So perhaps there's something we can learn from former elite soldier and US Navy SEAL, turned leadership coach, Jocko Willink, as to how to reduce the amount of stress in our lives.

His answer is simple... don't run away from your problems and let negative situations fester and remain, but choose to face them head on. The discomfort and pain of doing so will always be much less in the long term compared to putting things off, which could potentially make them much worse and cause us to worry the whole time we do. In a recent interview with Business Insider he said:

“A lot of times people have something that they're afraid of. They got a client that's mad at them, [or] they've got a project that's due and they let that stress hang over their head. I don't let that happen. If I've got a problem with one of my clients that needs to get solved, guess what I'm going to do? I'm going to call them up.”

What Mr Willink doesn't say though, is that this approach comes from aligning ourselves with principles. In this case, the principle of Personal Vision is all about being proactive. It means responding to a situation rather than reacting to it and the more we take the initiative with our problems, the more we can regain control and start to resolve them. A big cause of stress is the feeling of things slipping out of control in our lives, so don't let that happen - we either decide to act, or we will be acted upon.